Dennis Ritchie, a true technology leader, has died
Very few people reading this will have any grasp of how much the technology Dennis Ritchie developed impacts their daily lives.
Without exaggeration, every single computing device that you are likely to interact with on any given day can in some way be traced back to work done by Dennis Ritchie.
It doesn’t matter if you use Microsoft Windows, or an Apple iPhone, they all rely in some way or another on the programming language “C”, which Dennis help write back in the 70s.
I have absolutely nothing against Steve Jobs, but the pronouncements by uniformed media pundits on his relative importance were, to say the least, highly exaggerated. Apple makes fancy gadgets that a lot of people happen to like at the moment. Nothing more. The iPod, iPad, and iPhone will be the Sony Walkmans of the future. Yes they are fantastic devices for their time but will be quickly replaced when the next hot gadget craze comes along in a few years. Apple (like Sony in the 1980s) deserves a ton of credit for what they have accomplished. Their devices are and always will be iconic symbols of their time, but they certainly are not the most important. Not by a long shot.
On the other hand, I think you could make a strong case for the C programming language and the Unix operating system being the most important bits of technology ever developed. Absolutely every modern device runs on or depends on a system written in “C”. Pick up any device with a microchip and chances are it needs “C”. Computers, phones, cars, TVs, microwaves. All of them.
It really is awe inspiring when you stop to think about it.
